


An Artist's Burden

by ponninja



Category: Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Uprising
Genre: Fluff, Gen, One Shot, Other, basically mara is an artist yk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22518424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponninja/pseuds/ponninja
Summary: I wished the series continued (as all fans do lmao) and expanded on Mara's career as a graffiti artist, if that makes sense.Short one shot concerning her talent.
Relationships: Beck & Mara & Zed (Tron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	An Artist's Burden

Mara held the round glass in her hands, taking a sip of the blazing blue energy. It made her feel an ineffable emotion, something similar to a User’s sense of warmth. She smiled proudly as Beck and Zed peered at her drawing in awe.

“This is crazy!” Zed exclaimed, holding it in front of him, arms stretched as he tilted the tablet from side to side, as if to examine every small detail she put into it. “ _You_ made this?” He asked, squinting, bringing it close to his face.

“Duh.” Mara said, placing her glass down. “It took me almost a whole cycle for me to finish.”

“You could’ve drawn _anything_ , and you chose Zed?” Beck asked with an arched brow.

“You’re just jealous that I was her muse, and not you.” Zed said, returning the tablet to Mara.

“I could totally make a portrait for you, too, Beck. If you really wanted me to.” She said shyly, waving her hand over her canvas. It magically erupted into a blank slate, her fingers hovering over it.

“You said that took you about a cycle to finish?” Beck asked and Mara nodded. “You stared at Zed’s face for a whole cycle.” Zed rolled his eyes and she laughed.

“It’s an artist’s burden.”

“Hey!”

“But do you want a portrait?” She inquired.

“I mean, if you have the time between sleeping and working, then sure, yeah.” Beck said, responding to her prompt.

“I bet she’s made one of the Renegade already.”

“Tron,” She corrected, before removing her disc. “And so what if I did?”

“Yeah, no, I don’t think he’s Tron. About your fanart, you would probably be derezzed if a soldier found out about that.”

“Zed, this would be, what, the quintillionth time you’ve suggested this already. And I know because I’ve kept record of every, single, time, you’ve stated such a thing.” She said, placing emphasis on her words as she swiped through her memories. _And I_ would _die for Tron,_ or _the Renegade…_

“Well, what do _you_ think?” Zed asked Beck.

“I think…” He paused. Did he think the Renegade was his own person? Or was he actually Tron’s persona? “I’m not sure what to think, really,” He shrugged. “I’m pretty much bound to stay neutral for this one.”

Zed scoffed, before saying, “You still haven’t found a picture of Beck to draw of yet?”

“I’m trying! I’m looking for one where the Grid’s lights hit his face _just_ right.” Mara said, meticulously and slowly sliding through almost every single one of her memories. She was sure to avoid showing her adventures with Rasket, Moog, and the Renegade, keeping them encrypted. She scrolled a little bit farther, and then she realized.

Her routine, a digital ritual.

Awaken. Go to work. Hang with Beck and Zed. Go home. Sleep.

Awaken. Go… work. Hang with... Home. Sleep.

Awaken. Work. Hang. Home. Sleep.

Goto loop_01.

Infinite.

While her subtle, sullen expression was passed over, Zed suggested, “What about the time we played hyperball and the recognizers were _way_ too close to the ground, and there was all of that orange light on us?”

“Oh, yeah, I could check.” She swiped to the kilocycle before and found the moment Zed was referring to. From the memory, she could see that she looked at Zed, the point of view shaking a bit, as if she were laughing, before turning to Beck. His face shifted from mid laughter, to a heartfelt grin, shades of amber and honey and gold spread over half of him. She stopped there.

“Perf—” She halted, before saying, “Erm… Something about it…”

Beck nodded. The way that the Occupation’s vehicles hovered behind them, around them, the haziness of angry, blood reds, fiery oranges covering them, suffocating them… It rubbed him the wrong way.

“Couldn’t you switch to a, uh, different color?” Zed asked, looking at both of them, and Mara confirmed this by sliding the hues around.

“Well, yeah, I could, but where would the fun in that be?” Mara shrugged, before smiling. She reset the picture to its dismal state. “I could pick out colors from my source code at a moment’s notice!” She said, tapping her head. “I’ll record the process, so you guys don’t have to sit through a whole cycle for this.”

Zed and Beck stuck around for a few microcycles before leaving Mara to her work in the NRGhouse. While the ‘horizontal tab’ was their prime place to hang out, the NRGhouse was her personal favorite. As much as she loved to dance to the EDM and drink the electrifying energy, the bass boosted beats pounding into her head, deafening enough for her friends to yell over the commotion, she preferred the quietness and solitude of the NRG. Architects and other artistically creative engineers spent their time honing their crafts as dreamy synths filled the air.

The energy was… welcoming, warm; a characteristic mostly unheard of on the Grid, as with most objects, they were cold, unfeeling… mechanical. The closest thing to warmth was the from the hostile glow and buzz of a lit disc.

As Mara began her fifth cup of the said energy, she started to shade in Beck’s features. Though she considered Zed to be round and soft, she saw Beck as more angular, broadened and sharp.

After Bodhi’s death, she realized a shift in him. How he suddenly began to spend less time with them, disappearing more and more often. When the days were slow, she saw flickers of anxiety or stress, beyond his usual, relaxed self. She recalled the moment he drew his disc on Bartik and Hopper, the fire in his eyes, vaguely reminiscent of the colors on her canvas. She never saw that flare of hostility again, for some reason.

Mara moved on to brighter memories, like the time she needed Zed’s “small, feminine hands”, an inside joke that he seemed to take pride in. Then something clicked, as she began to highlight the teals and blues of the portrait. There was something about their group that had a pattern to it. Zed was feeble, meek, regretfully so. Beck was relaxed, laidback, yet the ever so hard worker. Mara was the technological enthusiast, an engineer with streaks of creativity within her. There was a sort of archetypes among them, indescribable, but still there.

Bodhi was… Her memory was beginning to fail her. Had it been that long since he disappeared? She realized it had been a while since she last put on her disc, quickly checking the time before promptly securing it to her back’s dock. She gasped, as her eyes literally lit up with recollection. It had been almost a full cycle since she removed her disc, her memories fleeting.

Then Bodhi was back.

The milliseconds of his prideful presence came back to her and she smiled. Then he was derezzed right before her eyes, and the smile was gone.

The millicycle curfew bell sounded and she flinched, saving her work before standing up from the booth. Rain pattered against the windows and she summoned, or rather rendered, a cloak from her inventory, a list of all her objects. The thin, white, glowing lines of the cloak’s wireframe formed, before cascading down into a havenless black, starting from her hood.

The digital fabric flowed and hung from her skin as she exited the bistro, with flecks of water hitting her blackness.

“Only the present matters.” She whispered.

The next cycle she met Zed and Beck again, right before their shifts began. She presented Beck’s portrait to them, and again, with awe, they examined her work. They stood near their workstations, on a seemingly infinite plane of glowing white. Their stations were barren, wrenches in their drawers. Thankfully, it was slow day, considering the bulk of their work was done the previous cycle.

“You really did this without shifting hues, huh?” Zed said. The familiar, foreboding orange of the Occupation burned behind them, as they were inspecting a batch of infected Light Jets; Zed suggested it was the Renegade. Nobody laughed.

“Yeah! It’s actually not that hard. Or a big deal, I guess, you know?” Mara was proud, but humble, in her own ways. “Do you like it?” She asked, her dainty fingers fiddling together. Another artist’s burden is to accept one’s creation, to deem it as perfect, or well-formed. And Mara really had trouble with that one.

“Like it? I freaking love it!” Beck said staring at himself. “It’s like… you took a screenshot of me or something!”

“You know I would’ve guessed you were one of those clowns that keep doing graffiti all over town.” Zed joked, yet, instead of laughing, she froze. Her smile faltered a bit and she laughed nervously.

“Oh, yeah, totally.” She said, rubbing her forearm. She replayed the memory of her skydiving with the Renegade just cycles prior. She was almost derezzed for the sake of her friends’ cheap, but deadly, thrills. It wasn’t a game. It never was, and it was a shame to see them miss out on the rebellion’s true goal.

“With all your talk of the Renegade and stuff, you seem like a pre-tty good candidate,” he continued, and she punched him in the arm.

“Whoa, okay Zed. We have the Occupation inspecting our latest project, do you _really_ want to see Mara derezzed?” Beck said, brows knitted together. After all, he _did_ save her. On top of being a vital force for the rebellion, she was his friend, a close one at that. Despite leaving her in the dust, he knew she would still stay strong.

Mara glared at Zed, before receiving her tablet back from Beck.

She glanced at the several Sentries forming a line in front of the main three recognizers, towering orange warships. Commander Paige, along with Pavel, stooped on either row of Light Jets. Pavel had a few soldiers following after him, like companion Bits, whereas Paige strutted by herself like a Siren. As Pavel rendered the Light Jets halfway to see their wireframes, he put the batons together as one, and tossed them behind him for a soldier to catch. Paige, on the other hand, stored them in her inventory, seemingly limitless as her list grew longer and longer with each baton.

CMDR_PAIGE = [ LightJetBaton_01, LightJetBaton_02, LightJetBaton_03 … ] and it kept going and going.

After all forty jets were accounted for, the lead engineers were personally thanked. With Mara’s previous performance as “the person in charge”, Able decided she would be a good fit for the previous cycle’s task. After all, they were similar incidents. Beck seemed to give excellent, almost cataclysmic advice to how to fix the bugs. Along with Mara was Zed, surprisingly, and Copper. Copper stood a ways from their workstations, so as Paige and Pavel sauntered over to the trio, Mara stood a little bit straighter.

Mara bit her lip to prevent herself from saying something snarky, especially to Pavel. She thought Paige was intimidating but held more grace and composure than her partner.

“Thank you for your assistance, Programs. This is probably the best repair shop in the city.” Paige said.

“Yes, especially the uh, blue one, whatever her name is.” Pavel said, despite being literally in front of her.

“It’s Mara, sir.” She said, adding the ‘sir’ a microcycle later.

Through this quick exchange, Paige glanced at Beck and he tilted his head, as if to jog her memory. Had she remembered her?

Before any response could be gained, the commanders turned on their heels and set off. The garage was white once again.

\--

Beck and Mara stood outside the garage, at a ledge that leered over a highway near the Sea of Simulation. Zed had been held back due to a brief retraining session with Able. The lift incident prompted Able to make Zed redownload and read its manual.

The air was colder than usual, biting at the Programs' faux nerves. Mara’s cloak was on, hood up and she shivered, hunched over a bit. In contrast, Beck stood tall, unfazed by the chills; he’d gone through worse. _Much_ worse.

“Hey Beck, can I, um, confide in you about something?”

He looked surprised. “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

“Okay, it’s…” She struggled with her words.

“I don’t mean to stop you before you even start, but what about Zed? Have you told him already about this?” Beck asked, assuming the worst.

“Well… No. He’s not exactly… _agreeable_ about this kind of stuff.”

“Oh.” Oh no. “Does it have something to do with the Renegade?”

“Yes. Like, you know how Zed can be! He’s always, talking glitch about him, despite the fact he’s fighting for us, beyond the Users. I don’t even know if he’s Tron, but regardless…”

“So you just wanted to vent about your appreciation about him? As you do every cycle?”

“No, not really.” Mara’s nervousness peaked, but there was a nuance in her movement. Her mouth twitched, and she seemed manic for a moment. “I don’t think I can tell you, but… I trust you Beck. I trust you a whole lot to be telling you this.” Beck stared.

“So a few cycles ago I… met him.”

“You met the Renegade.”

“Yes. Tron. Or yeah, same person—But I digress. I helped him on a mission!”

“Oh really?” Man, it was a good thing he cut her off. The fact that she trusted him enough to spill information about the Renegade. What if he was an Occupational informant? A double agent? A snitch?

“Look, you’re going to think my source code’s got errors, that I’m delusional, but I swear--!” She sighed dreamily, her electric blue eyes almost rolling back into her head. Beck was definitely taken aback. “He kind of, cradled me I guess? I went skydiving… Well, I was kind of unconscious and almost got derezzed but—”

“You almost got what?!” He snapped, trying his best to feign surprise and concern.

“I—”

“Hey guys, what’d I miss?” Zed said, approaching them. “The lift’s manual hadn’t been rendered in _ages,_ so it took a while to scan. If you ever need to know about why Flynn chose BASIC to make them, or other useless, mundane facts, just ask.”

“Isn’t BASIC kind of, you know, dead?”

“That’s what _I_ said!” Zed sighed. “It’s probably how it broke in the first place.” He added.

“That implies you don’t know how to code in-”

“Who cares about that? I just want to get to the Horizontal Tab already.” Mara whined, suddenly not wanting to elaborate on her adventure.

And so she dragged them by their arms, away from the garage.

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly was thinking about tagging this as Beck/Mara (rare pair material? lol) but decided against it, bc nah.
> 
> I'm working on another one, so stay tuned!
> 
> I also wrote this around Oct 19, 2019 btw sooo. I'm just posting this on a whim, considering there's been a recent surge in T:U fanart on tumblr for some reason?
> 
> Anyway, Tron stans rise up.


End file.
